Uranium
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Index Periodic Table Chemistry concepts | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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UraniumUranium is the rarest metal of the chromium group. It was not valued until the discovery in 1942 that it was capable of nuclear fission, yielding an enormous amount of energy. Uranium is usually found in the ores pitchblende (U3O8) and carnotite (K2U2V2O12.3H2O).
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Index Periodic Table Chemistry concepts Reference Pauling Ch. 29 | ||
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Uranium Nuclear Data
Uranium plays a major role in the natural radioactive series on the earth. 235U is the progenitor of the uranium-235 series, 238U the progenitor of the uranium-238 series, and 233U is a member of the neptunium-237 series. Uranium-235 is the most important isotope for nuclear fission. From Evans: "238U does show a half-period of about 1016 years for spontaneous fission, or about 25 fissions per hour in 1 gram of 238U. The probability of a decay is about 107 times as great." The half-life for spontaneous fission for 235U is about 1.8 x 1017 years compared to its a half-life of 7 x 108 years.
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Index Periodic Table Chemistry concepts Reference Rohlf Evans Ch 11 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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